


The Weight of Coping

by femme4jack, Merfilly



Series: Future in the Making [4]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Future Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-31
Updated: 2012-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-30 10:16:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/330642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme4jack/pseuds/femme4jack, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcee and Ironhide both have to face the existence of one who was lost, but the weight of that impact hits them each differently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight of Coping

Arcee reported directly to Ratchet as Prime had ordered, having sped home from the humans' Science City. She barely noticed the change in Esperanza, focused on just why her Prime would make such an odd order with no details beyond 'Ratchet will explain'. As Ratchet had still been out-system when Arcee left, it made the puzzle larger than ever. Had Ratchet found something important on Cybertron? Was there need to form a squad to deal with something on the home-world?

"Ratchet…" Arcee's voice trailed off as she was met with his hand, and noted the intense look of argument on his expressive faceplates. She only had to wait a few moments before Ratchet sagged in relief and focused outward.

"Ironhide was being his usual difficult self," he said by way of explanation. "Now, Arcee, I appreciate you coming quickly. I have to ask you a very serious question, one that none of us have typically asked in the aftermath of Chicago."

That made Arcee stiffen, and she fell back on her warrior protocols. She had not been there for that fight, still here in the secret Autobot outpost to heal from the damage done when her replicants were destroyed. "Sir?"

Ratchet flipped all his passive scanners into recording mode, well aware they operated below the threshold of most Cybertronian awareness. It would help him sort out her responses. "How do you feel toward the peace we are in? Will you support your Prime's choices, no matter what, in maintaining that peace?"

Arcee hesitated, then firmed her fields and stood tall. "As my Prime would have me do, I will follow his goals of peace, so long as it fits within my own ability to believe in the process, and support his efforts, as long as they do not abridge the freedoms he espouses to believe in for all sentient beings."

Ratchet wanted to grin at that answer, seeing a future in politics for this femme. It was carefully worded, and would have made Optimus hug her for the answer, had he been present. He had business, though. "While I was on Cybertron, there were those who did not know of the peace, or perhaps they saw it as a surrender, or whatever. They were not ready to accept the war was over, and had taken measures to bring down Megatron." The glint in Arcee's optics was understandable, but Ratchet shook his helm. "Much as I loathe the mech, our peace rests on him holding back his own, and letting the war die through separation of our people. What the Autobot rebels intended would have placed Soundwave in charge -- or worse -- and reignited the war. Likewise, had Megatron retaliated with his full wrath, we might have faced the same, a factor he chose to heed, sparing the rebels."

"And how does this apply to me?" Arcee questioned.

Ratchet plunged in with the answer, prepared to help support her if necessary. "Chromia was their leader."

She did not lash out or have a breakdown of processing capability at his revelation. That was a good thing. That meant at least _one_ of Chromia's ties was a sensible being.

"Chromia… I could have sworn… But then, you saved Ironhide, and the twins." The femme refused to face the idea she had not known. After all, she had not been in a position to check on the fallen femme after it happened. She did not want to dwell on those memories, not after all the Autobot mechs had done to try and work her past the experiments. "You said 'had Megatron retaliated'…"

Ratchet flicked a reassuring glyph of acknowledgment to the young femme. "She's in isolation for now, but has requested your presence, before she chooses her path from here. You understand, Optimus is in a very hard place right now? He has always respected your class, revered the bonds between us and Elita One's cohort. Now, he must, for all our survival, do all he can to keep the peace."

"I know." Arcee had been instrumental in several captures of Decepticons that refused to admit the war was done, despite the fact Megatron had decreed them free game if they attacked the Autobots or Earth. However, Prime was the kind to use deactivation only as a last resort, or he had been, and was finding that part of himself again without the pressure of war on his frame. "I will help Chromia find peace," Arcee promised Ratchet, her scans fluctuating in a way that made Ratchet flinch inwardly. It was the same solemn promise Jazz had made long ago to protect Prime from the worst of the war as long as he could.

"May reason prevail," Ratchet told her, flipping the location and security codes to her via an encrypted channel. She did not waste time, going to see one of the femmes that had donated code for her to exist. That left Ratchet free to go find Ironhide, who had accepted being banned from medical with all the grace of Annabelle at five years old being told she could not have Ironhide at her sleepover.

`~`~`~`~`

Ironhide, despite his hot anger, could not help but appreciate the changes he was finding throughout the city formerly known as Esperanza now that Metroplex had subsumed its systems into his own. Especially the far more fully equipped practice range where he was currently turning targets to slagged piles of molten metal. He had been briefly concerned that his activities would damage the mech he was inside (a reality so beyond the scope of his own lateral processing he had never once considered the fables to be true), but Metroplex had assured him that the range was well shielded and did not contain any form of sensors that would transmit pain to the cityformer's myriad decentralized processors.

That had Ironhide briefly considering how much Annabelle would enjoy talking with the newest Cybertronian in the system, but even the gentleness brought out by the thought of his charge and her new offspring could not settle his temper.

With his concern for Metroplex set aside, Ironhide had put the range through his own kind of workout, but even the smoking, bubbling piles of slag that had once been moving targets were not enough to settle his current anger toward the two Pit-spawn pains in his circuitry he had been cohort with the longest. 

He had been aware of broken bonds, and had little reason to believe them to be anything other than forever lost. He was fortunate enough to have his primary cohort intact, and missing only one member. Now he found out that a bondmate he had practically no memory of had survived the near-deactivation that had severed the connection, and it was quite possible she would face stasis or deactivation before it could be reforged.

The Pit take them all, and the Pit take him for having crippled himself by losing his frame and core in the first place! He spat curses as he demolished another round of targets. There were still far too many vorns upon vorns of memories he lacked.

He knew he could make a difference, and instead he was forced to stay away. If anyone could convince Chromia that the time for war had come to an end, it would be the warrior she had bonded with in an apparently rare connection outside of her class. There were so few of any of their kind, and Prime, in deference to human fears, showed no inclination to create in the manner the Decepticons were engaging in with such fecundity. They could not spare capable mecha, and Primus-slag it all if he was going to allow an opportunity to reforge a lost bond pass him by. 

He had just locked on another set of targets when the door slid open. Recognizing the field that entered, he ignored it completely, and instead let all the anger in him coil deep in his systems before he released it through the brutal force of his plasma cannon, a replica only recently completed of the one he had lost even before he'd lost his frame. The kickback sent a fiery surge through his systems that matched his seething anger. 

"Being angry over it all isn't helping anyone," Ratchet informed him, staying well clear of the violently-oriented warrior. "By all rights, Arcee is the one who has most reason to pull Chromia away from her pain, and start her on the path to recovery." Though Arcee accepted the companionship of Jolt and his wards, and she was friendly to all the mechs, she was alone, and had never forged another bond, beyond the light one she and Mikaela had found in partnership.

Ironhide gave no reply as he finished off the current round of targets. If Ratchet hadn't already been gone for so long, he would be tempted to simply exit the range and find somewhere else to let off his steam. But Ratchet had been gone, and this was not the reunion he'd had in mind.

Instead he un-subspaced his cleaning kit, disconnected his plasma cannon, and sat against the wall to service it, refusing to look at his anchor. He was half inclined to let rough interfacing and his spark explain what he had no desire to give words to. He knew he was being, as Annabelle liked to say, a brat, but slag it this had made him angry.

He didn't speak until Ratchet had moved closer, to stand in front of him as he quietly and methodically continued his work. "Not that slagging stupid," he muttered. "Of course Arcee needs to be first. Last of their cohort, for Pit's sake. But if she's unsuccessful? If I had still been on Earth, ignorant, I wouldn't even had a chance. Wouldn't have even known."

"Do you have so little trust in me? In Prime? Yes, we both would have spared you the pain, if we could. But to do so spares you the choice as well." Ratchet let his disgust for Ironhide's hurtful accusation to flow through both their bonds and his voice. "She can't feel Arcee. Even on the same planet. Her bonds were severed fully. You... did not let that happen. And I am afraid of the effect it will have on you, to see her, to speak to her, to be in that room, if your attempt to find that link fails. But you would have had a chance to try and persuade her. No matter the pain."

Ironhide did not allow his internal flinch to show as he absorbed Ratchet's words, and even more so, the hurt that was far worse than the normal indignation. Slag it, he was not designed for such complicated emotions. "How can I feel hurt when I hardly know who she is?" he all but growled out, the true source of his anger making itself known, and it was not directed at either of his cohortmates. "Slag it! I have a single datafile on her, and it is your memory of her and Elita One when Arcee onlined, not even one of my own."

Ratchet was silent for a long time. He let Ironhide clean the weapon, and merely stood there, but Ironhide could feel turmoil under the quiet. The medic was struggling with his own lack of ethics versus his need to protect and nurture his loved one. Finally, Ratchet moved so he could actually see Ironhide's features, and show his own, letting the mobile faceplates betray shame.

"After your reaction to Prowl's disappearance, I could not bear to feel that raw, gaping loss in you again, and asked or bullied silence from the others about the femme cohort and their impact on your life."

Ironhide went still, suddenly blocking the bond tighter than anything Ratchet had felt since the reformat. Then his engines revved and he was standing, reconnecting his cannon with smooth, practiced movements before taking a single step toward the medic, the fury of his fields colliding with Ratchet's own. But before advancing another, he whirled and turned back toward the range, advancing to position and activating another round of targets, taking them out and avoiding the tracers from the simulation in a series of coordinated blasts, ducks and leaps. With the bond so fully blocked, it was not clear who the fury was directed at.

Ratchet watched for a moment, then left Ironhide to his form of coping, shoulders and helm both sloping downward in the most human expression of self-loathing that anyone could remember seeing the medic have. He had wanted to protect, and had instead made a costly decision in selfish desire. Watching that fallout now was more pain to him than anything but the moments just after the loss of a mech, bonded or not, could bring to him.

`~`~`~`~`

Chromia rose as she detected someone about to enter the isolation cell, not wanting to be caught in the vulnerable position of meditative prayer. She turned as she rose, and saw the less bulky version of herself step inside with her, sealing the door carefully before actually looking Chromia's way.

Neither femme immediately had words for the other, each appraising in their scans and visual recording of the other. Arcee saw that Chromia's midnight blue frame had taken more damage over the intervening years than just that which Arcee had thought meant Chromia's destruction. The self-repair protocols were either undernourished or compromised, much like Megatron's had been for so long, if those uneven welds and mismatched chromatics were anything to go by. Chromia saw that Arcee had a far more guarded posture now, and there were lines in the faceplates that never went away, stress of losing integral pieces of herself as well as isolation from all others written there.

"Not such a bitling at all, now, are you?" Chromia finally said, breaking the uneasy silence. It was the gentlest tone she ever used, and had always been reserved for the young one of their cohort, or Elita herself.

"There have been… events," Arcee evaded. She didn't like to remember the experiments. She still didn't feel whole, no matter it had been over half a vorn since her other selves were destroyed in the battle against the Fallen.

"So there have."

Chromia sat down on her berth at one end, the invitation clear to Arcee. After a moment's hesitation the younger femme came ad sat down near Chromia, not touching.

"I believe in Prime," Arcee blurted when the silence they fell into started to weigh too heavily on her. "He's done so much for us, held everything together, and given so much of himself to preserve our species!"

"Calm down, bitling. I'm certainly not going to go one on one with the only mech in all of Cybertronian history to fully integrate Protector and Prime upgrades," Chromia reassured her.

"And Seeker, now," Arcee said, ducking her head as she felt like the awkward young femme all over again.

"Do tell. Tell me all of it, little one, and spare nothing. I … cannot face an unknown world with decisions made on half-intelligence. It's not as if that medic has ever been good at talking to me."

Arcee laughed. "He's not great at talking to much of anyone, to be honest." Arcee considered offering a shared data connection, but the security risks, to both of them, stilled the offer before it came out. Verbal reporting would have to do, and of necessity, Arcee's report began on the day she watched her cohort die.

It was not going to be easy, but it had to be done.

`~`~`~`~`

Ironhide arrived with his tempers locked down for the moment. He had his processor set in the calm of post-battle violence, just as Arcee was leaving the isolation cell. He locked up, across the corridor, as he saw the deep blue frame of the femme within, and felt the dim resonance in his spark. Reforged in a new frame, with only a smattering of memories of this being in the form of snapshots and reports of her from others, yet his spark still knew. Just as his spark had pushed him to reclaim his bonds with his original cohort, it knew that femme was supposed to be his partner too.

Her optics locked on his, and her motion was impeded only by Arcee physically interposing herself at the door to the cell, a wordless noise of protest issuing to stop the stronger femme from leaving her cell.

"Ironhide." The designation was uttered as a half plea, half denial of reality.

"Chromia." Ironhide made himself move, patting Arcee's shoulder to calm the young femme. "Lock me in with her, Arcee."

Arcee could only comply, even as she hoped she was doing the right thing. A comm was sent to Prime and Ratchet, as she coded the cell shut on the pair of warriors.


End file.
